There is some evidence (although not anywhere near at the level that constitutes convincing scientific evidence) that this test specifically goes the other way in transsexuals. There is good reason to believe that transsexualism is associated with fetal exposure to abnormal hormone levels.
Heh. I never had much upper-body strength to begin with. 
Makes sense to me and I’ve heard this before as well. I would still hazard a guess that male to female transexuals had more testosterone in the womb than the average female but I’m certainly willing to be convinced otherwise. Even if that’s not the case there is probably something to be said about the Y-chromosome regardless of hormones; for instance, genetic males with AIS tend to me much taller and have greater bone density than most women.
AIS females have been accepted as female for the purpose of Olympic competition for many years, however.
What a pissweak excuse. Bottom line? Politeness costs nothing… but I see you’ve already been officially reprimanded so I’ll zip it right now.
As to the OP? My personal opinion? As former Olympian myself? It’s just another example of the Olympics trying to be all things to all people. Eventually it’ll become so big that no one country will be able to host it all and it’ll just become a 4 week long nationalism wank fest. Already you have certain team fixtures being played up to a week before the Opening Ceremony so as to get all the round robin stuff out of the way.
I said it then, and I’ll say it now. When the IOC let pro tennis players play a tennis tournament in 1984, that was the writing on the wall. For fuck sake, there was already a Grand Slam in tennis - every year. I mean… at what point does the word “overkill” ever get used these days?
If politeness costs nothing, why are so few people willing to share it with transsexuals?
How cool that you are a former Olympian? In what sport? (Tennis?)
The IOC is a totally corrupt, nasty little body. It is a pity they have essentially hijacked the whole concept and history of the Olympic games. I can’t remember the name but some journo has a brilliant expose book on them.
Nah, I’m a road racing cycling dude. I was born with the perfect physique for Tour de France style racing… long legs, light skeletal structure, big lungs, and not enough brains to feel the pain! 
Road racing???
Holy s^%$, no way!!!
That is awesome. If you don’t mind revealing a bit about yourself, who did you ride for and when?
Were you ever in the Tour? What have you done well in?
threemae-A just starting out collegiate racer
True, but they do NOT have greater strength or speed, and the few instances where athletes have been known to be XY females they have not displayed any great advantages. They do not compete at the uppermost levels except very rarely, and I don’t recall an instance where they were top of their sport even when able to compete at the world level.
Now, the women who DO have the advantage are women with naturally higher than normal levels of testosterone - they are genetically XX, but for some reason their bodies churn out extra male hormones (typically from the adrenal glands). They, too, tend to have denser bones than the average woman - AND they really do tend to have lower body fat and greater muscle mass. And a tendency to grow beards. But there’s no restriction on their participation, even if they do have an inborn advantage over other women.
Any woman qualifying for the Olympics is going to blow 90% of the men in the world out of the water – the average female Olympic runner will out do a couch potato or desk jockey any day of the week.
Boo Foo Foo rode for Australia.
Well, I hardly see how that could make a difference. There are skeletal differences between born-female athletes. The biggest isn’t always the best. I’m very petite and would not win in most strength competitions, but I’d kick ass in gymnastics. Plus, there is a difference in body type and size in same-sport competition. Take swimming, for instance. They’re all different sizes within the same sex. I just don’t see it being all that relevant.
I suspect that wether or not it is fair, transexuals will have a tough time competing.
If they lose, they lose, and no athelete likes that.
If they win, there will always be a fairly sizeable and vocal proportion of the population who say they’ve won because they are “really a man”.
I think the key point being lost is what KellyM says here. HRT can be stressful to the point of devastating for some, and given the need to be at absolute peak mental and physical performance for something as stressful as the Olympics, I have a hard time seeing anyone choosing this route as a dodge and winning. However, in the future I suppose it could be possible as transsexualism becomes more accepted and medical research into transitioning advances.
If you’re talking about post-op patients, then you have a whole other level of body stress to deal with.
One thing to be concerned about, however, is the fact that there is both a wide level of public misinformation and FUD about transsexuals (even in this online community, on occasion) and a strong desire for athletes to try risky and unorthodox behaviour to “get that edge”. I think it is possible and even likely that we would see young boys and girls who are not transsexuals choosing a risky path health-wise out of a desperate sense of “I want an edge”. That is, I could see a situation where a young woman starts injecting testosterone secretly in a misguided attempt to improve her 400m times, etc. So I believe there has to be some level of either vigilence or standards on when and where an Olympic athlete can use HRT. How that could be decided without excluding real transsexuals sounds complicated, nit-picky, and potentially opening the IOC to numerous and sundry lawsuits that drain money and resources.
This one is going to be a difficult issue that will likely come up every few years.
Almost the same content. Enjoy!
Except for being bigger/taller is a big deal, especially in sports as swimming. The longer/taller you are you get a lot more pull in the water. The taller you are in golf the harder you can hit. Just look at Wie, she’s around, just over 6 feet tall and is one of the stronger players on the LPGA.
I’m still somewhat undecided on this issue. The only thing holding me back is I still don’t know exactly how much strenght gets lost on hormone replacement. There are many swimmers who are right on the line of qualifying for the Olympics for men. The qualifying times for men are faster then the world records for the women. What would happen if someone was just to slow for the men, wanted to become a woman anyway and went through everything and kept her strenght? She would then crush the world records. Now as I said I don’t know enough about MtFs and if I am shown that this isn’t going to happen then I have no problem with them in the Olympics.
The IOC did look at the information on this in making their determination, you know.
Before I started HRT I was able to do strenuous labor for several hours at a time, and spend an entire day walking about town, without getting particularly tired. I was also able to easily lift boxes weighing up to 100 pounds.
Today, I get winded after a couple hours of walking (the March for Women’s Lives, a two hour stroll around downtown DC, wore me out), and twenty minutes of heavy labor will force me to take a nap. My lift limit is now about 50 pounds.
Some of this is due to age and some of it is due to the hypotensive effect of the antiandrogens I take, but most of it is due to the systemic effects of hormone replacement. The only “advantage” I have left from my male genetics are my height (6’0") and my large feet (size 11), and neither of those is all that particularly remarkable for a woman.
The decline was more prominent when I started taking antiandrogens, which leads me to be believe that much of my loss of strength is a consequence of removing testosterone from my system. But I started to notice a loss of strength only months after starting estrogen-only HRT.
In my informed opinion, a male-to-female transsexual on HRT would have to work out with great dedication to retain even a significant fraction of her original strength. I don’t believe that any athletic benefits gained through such dedication should be grounds to invalidate her from competition.
It’s absolutely unfair, as males on average have a great deal more upper body strength than females. Sexual dimorphism is real in the human species and should be taken into account in athletics.
Try reading the thread next time.:rolleyes:
Kelly I can tell you’re absolutely pissed off on this subject, I on the other hand don’t have a lot of emotional investment here. And I remember certain West German athletes from Olympics past who, while not transexual, were not the gender they were advertised to be. Seems to be a similar potential here.